■What influence
does equality between men and women have on defining their expected
roles in life? And are we allowed to say that men and women have
identical roles in life, since they are one and of the same soul?

● God created men and women to build life together and to
complete one another all lifelong. Hence, Islam opened the door to
women to wade through all the fields of struggle in life side by side
with men, supporting each other, helping, and completing one another.
Moreover, Islam did not separate them in roles, the thing that is
clearly shown in His saying {The
Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin
what is just and forbid what is evil.} (9:71).
Once we understand that justice embraces everything positive in life,
and that evil comprises everything negative in it, we will then
realize that men and women are partners in building up life. And just
like men are responsible of the society, women also are equally
responsible of the society they live in. So, outside the framework of
the specifically motherhood and fatherhood characteristics where they
perform absolutely different functions, men and women have vast areas
to conquer, building life shoulder to shoulder as human beings, equal
in humanity. Accordingly, we can say that Islam had opened the door to
women to enjoy life as a whole, in contrast to what some people may
assume that it had tied them down in their characteristics as females.

■Where and how
does the role of women as females prevail? And where could they
perform their role as human beings?

● The sphere in which a woman can express her femininity is
narrow to a certain extent, because it is restricted to her marital
life where her role as a female is mainly revealed, and to her family
and feminine milieu where she can show her feminine traits through
wearing ornaments or whatever… not to mention motherhood that is the
most important feminine role that a woman fulfills. But motherhood
itself is not purely a feminine role; all the more so it is a human
role in a woman’s life. Thus, the role of a woman as a human being
remains her most essential role in life. She must confirm, in her
actions, that she is a person of reason, a person of will, a person of
affection, and a person who has a mission to carry out and she should
prove that she has the ability to take part in life. So, women’s
humanity is the most important aspect in their personality because it
is the aspect that symbolizes the aim God (S.W.T) created them to
achieve in this world. He created women to contribute to the existence
with the faculties they have, just as He created men to contribute to
the existence with the abilities they possess. Therefore, we believe
that, while the feminine aspect of the woman’s personality is
revealed in a delimited sphere, her human aspect is manifested in her
whole existence as a woman. Even more, the human aspect of her
personality will indeed be integrated with the feminine aspect of her
conduct as a female, whether with her husband or within her own
specific sensations of femininity. Verily, the aspect of humanity in
her will enrich that conduct turning it into a nobler one, and will
expand her giving to the partner that she joins in marriage. In other
words, it is an aspect that refines the instinct and humanizes it in
deeds as well as in feelings, so that the marital relationship will no
longer be a relationship in which the female provides the male with
her biological drives. It will rather be a human relationship where
each partner, male or female, makes use of his distinguishing
characteristics in order to give the other what pleases him and what
satisfies both his emotional and his physical needs.

■When Islam
confirms the specifically female characteristic of a woman in its
rulings and legislations; doesn’t that lead us to the conclusion that
the intrinsic role of a woman, according to Islam, is the role of a
housewife?

●The saying that Islam ties the woman down to a homemaker
role is a frequently heard reflection on the way things are, and this
is why it is worth discussing. But before going into the depth of the
subject, we should point out the presence of two kinds of rulings in
Islam: The first kind is the binding rules that necessitate the person
to do something or not to do it, and they are called the obligation
and prohibition rules. And the second is the rules that urge the
person to do something but do not compel him to doing it; or exactly
the opposite, wishing him not to do something but at the same time do
not prevent him from doing it, and they are called the preferable and
the detested  or the rules that allow the person the
possibility of choosing whether to do or not to do and they are called
the allowed.

Well, does Islam oblige the woman to be a housewife before and
after marriage? According to Islam, not a single person whether a
father, a mother, a brother or any relative, is authorized to
legitimately oblige the woman to manage domestic work in her parental
house before marriage. So, housework is not imposed on women just like
neither the father nor the mother has the legitimate right to oblige
the boy to handle housework.

Yes. She can take on this charge if she willingly volunteered to,
out of the sense of responsibility towards the house that is taking
care of her. And when the girl becomes a wife, the fact that she
manages the domestic work in her house or does not, will also remain a
voluntarily matter that is up to her to decide. The contract of
marriage does not bind women, from a legal aspect, to do housework,
not even to rear her children and take care of them, unless the two
married people worked on including the performance of these works in
the marriage contract under special terms.

But Islam does not consider that women’s housework as one of the
marriage contract articles, and it also does not require the women to
carry out any kind of jobs outside home to support her family or to
contribute in supporting it. On the basis of the marriage contract,
man can demand nothing from his wife but the rights to the private
marital relationship and all what is related to it. Anything other
than that, such as arranging the household affairs and bringing the
children up, would not be imposed on her.

From this perspective, we can approach the issue of women’s work
in the house as women’s finest contribution that completes men’s
finest contribution.

■But doesn’t
saying that a woman is not obligated to manage her household chores as
well as she is not required to lead a job outside the house, carry an
implicit acknowledgement that she has a marginal role in life, or at
least encourage her to stick to the margin?

● Saying that a woman is not obliged to work inside the house
or even outside it does not mean that she must do nothing in life.
Indeed, the core issue is that Islam wanted women to handle their
housework motivated by reasons of giving and not out of obligation, as
a social service.

When Islam didn’t force women to manage the household affairs, it
offered them the opportunity to participate in building the society
they live in. From an Islamic point of view, women are as responsible
as men to help people finding their way to God (S.W.T), and to guide
society in the right path with all the power they have. And as we have
previously mentioned, women are also charged to enjoin what is just
and forbid what is evil, the thing that represents the social
practical surveillance against deviation in all the domains of life; a
role that might get to the level of revolt against unjustness and
deviation.

And the saying that a woman is not bound to carry out any career
outside home to make a living - in the light of the saying that she
should share the man the responsibility of enjoining what is just and
forbidding what is evil - does not mean in any way that her role in
life is canceled. On the contrary, it indicates that the opportunities
are, indeed, wide enough for her to perform that role in a way that
her job as a mother and as a homemaker, her participation in
supporting her family and even the responsibility of supporting
herself do not drain her power to contribute to the public fields.

By making the hardships of home and family life, and even married
life less burdensome for women; Islam had, in fact, acknowledged the
role of women in building life, and offered her the chance to
participate, practically, in that building process.

■Notwithstanding
your emphasis that the role of a woman as a human being is her prior
role in life, this priority is practically negated once we recognize
the considerable value Islam attaches to the role of a woman as a wife
and as a mother, the thing that necessitates her to remain home in
order to take care of the children and to satisfy the husband’s needs.
So, according to Islam, are women alone responsible of bringing
children up? And do they have to stay constantly with their children?

●Firstly: Although Islam stresses on the importance of a
woman’s role as a mother and as a wife, we can benefit from the
majority of its rulings that had commissioned the father with the
responsibility of the family and the children in particular, and gave
him the right to their custody in case of separation… The father and
the mother are real partners in the task of raising a child; and
although Islam regards motherhood as sacred, it had not made women
responsible of rearing their children. In addition to the affection
purpose of motherhood and fatherhood, they also have a parenting job
that they help each other to fulfill. In this job, the distinctive
nature of each parent - the mother as a woman and the father as a man
- along with the kind of connection that relates the child to each one
of them, have an intrinsic role in developing and enriching the
child’s personality on all levels. While the mother provides her
child with the inner sense of security when satisfying his physical
and emotional needs as a result of her direct adhesion to his body;
the father, through looking after the child’s external affairs,
takes on the responsibility of supplying him with a deep sense of
protection and strength through which he can face the entire outside
world. This is an illustration of the mutual work that both the
husband and the wife cooperate in doing.

Secondly: It is of a great importance to the child that his mother
would be the one who fosters him; nevertheless, nothing binds the
woman to constantly stick to the child, or even to the husband, unless
he needed her in an extraordinary way.

From this standpoint, the emphasis placed on the importance of
woman’s special role as a wife as well as a mother does not deny her
general role as a human being because this role carries some human
purposes in itself.

■In case the
mother preferred to carry out a job rather than staying all the time
with her infant, where can she put him?

●If the mother is fully occupied, whether with her work or
with anything else, and she cannot take care of her newborn, she can
then rely on anyone she finds trustworthy to watch over her baby, in
an attempt to fill up the emptiness caused by her absence. However,
the mother should make her best trying to spend with him as much time
as she can afford in order to provide him with the love and tenderness
that can help him in alleviating the feeling of fear created by her
not being present.

■Is it
acceptable to send babies to daycare centers?

●Putting children in daycare centers in such cases might seem
the most practical solution and the most educationally suitable for
the child because, usually, there are specialists of education
supervising these centers. Nonetheless, the mother should double her
efforts to compensate her baby for all the fondness that he misses in
her absence, and for all the anxiety and fragility that he feels only
by being present in the middle of an unfamiliar crowd of children.